Santiago Ramon y Cajal: Scientist/Artist

 I've just read book review in latest issue of 'Science News' (3/26/22), entitled 'How a scientist-artist transformed our view of the brain,' by Laura Sanders.  The book is a biography of Ramon y Cajal, The Brain in Search of Itself  by Benjamin Erlich (FS&G, 2022).  This man, Santiago Ramon y Cajal [hereafter abbreviated RyC] (1852-1934), was a physician, an anatomist like his father, born and died in Spain.  He married Silveria Fananas Garcia and had many children.  As a youngster, he developed a talent for drawing and sketching, and produced pictures of the world around him.  This artistic ability served him well in the field of anatomy, particularly in brain and nervous system physiology, as he drew fine, elaborate pictures of nerve cells, based on his microscope observation.  With use of reazione nera, the 'black reaction' method of staining cells for better viewing, invented by Italian physician, Camillo Golgi, RyC discovered independence of nerve cells, contrary to current reticular theory of brain/nervous system.  He saw and drew in his pictures, space between nerve cells, showing their independence in function.  This discovery won RyC, Nobel Prize in medicine in 1906, which he shared with Golgi.  This discovery and teaching of RyC became the basis of modern theory of neurons and so RyC is called 'father of modern neuroscience.'  

Though RyC departed from organized religion, he held to doctrines of soul and God, Creator of universe.[1]

Note

1.  On this, see Wikipedia article under heading, 'Political and religious views.'  Especially, see there note 15.          

Poetry

Poetry is the art of turning words into meaning that touches the inside of you.  Music may accomplish this too, but with sound, even without words.  Painting may accomplish it also, without sound or words.  So then, the important thing with poetry is emotional meaning, interior resonation.  You know, humans have a lot going on inside them.  To read or hear words and feel them reverberating within yourself with things that are wordless is a kind of ecstasy, feeling you're understood and that somehow things fit.  Don't you think Peter, John or Mary Magdalene felt this listening to Jesus?  People listen to their favorite music and feel it echoing inside, witnin the heart.